Pillars Of Hercules (ii)

The Big South African Baby Doc wasn't far wrong. He just wouldn't have fit. See that dark cavernous schism there? Down we went, and many more like it. For metres at a time we slipped sideways through plates of rock and even I only just inched through. Imagine getting wedged fast between dripping dank monoliths two miles under the rock of Gibraltar. It was an inhumane place where living things had no business. I was terrified and angry. I was angry that the Coxswain wasn't talking to me anyway, I was angry at the Staffy for getting us into such a predicament. I was angry when I had to pull my own weight up a tall slippery slope on a single rope and noone thought to inquire first if I was even capable of doing so. I think the boys were all just as scared but nobody dared say. Meanwhile Staffy and the Military Boy outdid each other in Cheerful British Bravado and we all wanted to slap the pair of them.

Baby Doc is the commonly received term for the ship's crew doctor. And him a beast of a fellow too. We did find him several hours later looking rather miserable on his moist rock in the dark.